The Flora of Elephant Rocks: Finale

This is the last post regarding my trip to Elephant Rocks! It was a good time of year to go, and I learned a lot about the local flora (and fauna! see below).

This is the second turtle we saw. There was a third, but he was too far away to photograph. This one's cute as can be. He was showing off his lovely shell. He's even got his head thrown to the side in a glamorous pose. This guy's a future Ralph Lauren model, I'm telling you.

Now back to plants. At the edge of the quarry were these cattails (Typha latifolia), which are neither common nor unheard of in my area. These plants had cottony fluff on their tips. I think the fluff is the fruit of the plant, which has bristles to aid in dispersal.

Kind of different, isn't it? Dandelions and cotton use the same device to propagate their species.

After taking those pictures, we ventured away from the quarry and back onto a trail. There I found a plant that looked very familiar:

It looks like a shamrock (though there is no consensus on what species "shamrock" actually refers to)! While I cannot find any photographic evidence, this plant must be within the Oxalis genus (which also includes purple shamrock and woodsorrel). This picture gives a glimpse of the hot-pink undersides of the leaves.

Looking back, I can't determine whether or not these flowers are coming up from these Oxalis plants. They're pretty, though.

Yeah, still can't tell. I don't see any other leaves around them, so maybe these two have the same roots (pun?).

Here's a final "shamrock" hanging out with another woodsorrel species to the right.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my trip to Elephant Rocks! What species comes to your mind when you think about shamrocks? Are cattails common in your area? What about turtles?

Next post: the brightest pink of the season thus far.

The Flora of Elephant Rocks, Part II

Today we continue our trek through Elephant Rocks State Park to examine its plant life and diversity.

However, I'm going to start with an organism that isn't really a plant. Pictured is a lichen, which is actually a symbiosis between a fungus (a mycobiont) and a blue-green bacteria (AKA cyanobacteria or photobiont). The fungus in the relationship derives energy from decomposing organic matter on the rock or tree where it lives. The bacteria is photosynthetic, so it derives its energy from the sun. I'm not sure why these two organisms get together, but they do provide energy for each other, so they're a happy couple.

Here's a slightly different lichen.

Now, onto the actual plants. I've never actually encountered lamb's ear (Stachys byzantina, also known as woolly hedgenettle) before, but as soon as I felt this plant's leaves, I knew what it was. The name is completely accurate. Its leaves were very soft and woolly feeling. According to the USDA, these plants are absent in Missouri, but I daresay that is inaccurate.



Lamb's ear's pubescence (hair) gives it a silvery look, which makes it popular in moonlight gardens.

As it is springtime, it should be no surprise that I found a number of wildflowers out at Elephant Rocks. The light on this particular bloom is pretty wonky, but you can still see it.

Here are some even cheerier ones. These are reminiscent of bluebells, only yellow.

Now we're back to another moss. I haven't seen many mosses this color. It's got a kind of 70s shag rug look.

Pictured here is one of the quarries. All of the abandoned ones have filled with rainwater. While a lot of people have died in these deep pools, the changes have created a habitat for these aquatic reeds.

And, finally, while this is not plant-related, I bring you a turtle. Isn't he cute? I took this shot from very far away. This turtle is probably almost a foot long.

Have you ever petted lamb's ear? For those of you who have petted actual lambs' ears, do they feel the same?

Next post: more turtles, and the rest of the plants from Elephant Rocks as well.

The Flora of Elephant Rocks State Park, Part I

I went home last weekend, and I spent part of that time sightseeing. One of the places I visited was Elephant Rocks State Park, a sizeable collection of gigantic granite rocks. The site used to be a granite quarry, so there's a lot of history there. I've been to Elephant Rocks scores of times, though, so I was more interested in the plants. Oh, who am I kidding? Plants are always more interesting. I took a lot of pictures, so there will be a few posts about this. Let's get started!

The first plant at the park that really caught my eye was one you don't often think about seeing in Missouri: the prickly pear cactus (Opuntia genus, possibly humifusa since it's so far east).

While a part of me wanted to harvest a pad or two from this cluster to try to eat, I decided against it. One shouldn't disturb nature when possible, and besides, I didn't have any gloves, and glochids (the tiny spines that lodge in and irritate your skin - the brown furry bits in the following picture) aren't fun. For a cactus, this plant has seemingly survived our wacky winter and spring very well.

I definitely want some edible Opuntia someday. Eating these plants to me is a symbol of man's mastery of nature (read: I can eat things with big sharp spines!). Also, regarding the picture below, isn't it surreal to see moss and cactus in the same frame?

Speaking of the moss, that's what next captured my attention, so I captured some views of it. Moss is really cool (most of their tissues are haploid, meaning they only have one set of chromosomes. The only haploid human tissues are sperm and egg cells), so I usually stop to look at it, but some of the moss I saw at Elephant Rocks was reproducing. This is a phenomenon that only happens in really wet areas (thank you terrible flooding rains!), and it's one that I only recently learned about. That's why seeing cactus and moss in the same spot is odd to me: one needs dry climates, and the other needs very wet climates.

See those little stalks poking up from the moss? Those aren't stems--they're sporophytic (read: diploid, meaning they have two sets of chromosomes) stalks that release spores out of the pointed structures at their tips. The spores are haploid, and they grow into the fuzzy mats of moss you normally see.

The reason moss can only reproduce when its environs are wet is that moss sperm is "swimming sperm," just like in ferns. This means that the sperm cells can't move on their own; instead, they must be carried to and fro in water. Moss can produce all the sperm and eggs it wants when it's dry out, but they will never meet and produce these sporophyte stalks that spit out the next generation of moss.

Before long, there's going to be a lot of moss in this spot!

You can actually see the effects of swimming sperm here. The portions of this clump of moss that aren't in shadow aren't reproducing because water evaporates more quickly from them. The portions that are more protected from the sun's rays are able to reproduce. I didn't think of that when I took this picture. I just thought it was odd that only some of it was producing the sporophyte stalks. Now I'm glad I noticed.

I hope you learned a bit about plants today. Do you still find moss adorable, even though most of its cells are technically sex cells? Are you surprised to see cactus in Missouri? (I've never seen any that big here before.)

Next post: more from Elephant Rocks!